


Far from Grace

by aggretsu



Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Blow Jobs, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Embedded Images, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Masturbation, Minor Original Character(s), Street Kid V (Cyberpunk 2077)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:41:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28183344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aggretsu/pseuds/aggretsu
Summary: Six months pass just like that. It’s funny how some people you’ve met a thousand times and still can’t remember their names. Others are like Jackie, sticking to you like melted sugar, or a song you can’t get out of your head. Meeting him shifts the tempo of V’s life, moves everything up to 2x speed. It’s like he was just biding his time before then. Sitting around, waiting for things to happen. Wondering why they didn’t.*updated with fanart!
Relationships: Male V/Jackie Welles, V/Jackie Welles
Comments: 53
Kudos: 246





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Вдали от благодати](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28481265) by [fatso_s_sister](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fatso_s_sister/pseuds/fatso_s_sister)



> Because we deserve so much more than that two-minute montage of them committing crimes and being bros!!!
> 
> Updated with GORGEOUS (NSFW) ART by [@ranxxxnef](https://twitter.com/ranxxxnef) for the first & third chapters [(orig post for first piece here)](https://twitter.com/ranxxxnef/status/1340871998331781124?s=20) \- tysm for these GIFTS ;; embedded in the story below!

Six months pass just like that. It’s funny how some people you’ve met a thousand times and still can’t remember their names. Others are like Jackie, sticking to you like melted sugar, or a song you can’t get out of your head. Meeting him shifts the tempo of V’s life, moves everything up to 2x speed. It’s like he was just biding his time before then. Sitting around, waiting for things to happen. Wondering why they didn’t.

They carry out a gig in Kabuki, at the No-Tell Motel. Cop a briefcase from a corpo with his tie unknotted, pants down around his ankles. Jacked in and jacking off, his hand moving quickly on his insubstantial dick. “Like taking candy from a baby,” Jackie says, snapping a photo of the guy slumped on the bed with his pubes out. It’s a thing Jackie does, stealing mementos. He’s got an unexpected sentimental streak. V does it too, but he’s practical about it—a stack of eddies here, a case of ammo there. Cans of Spunky Monkey for a quick recharge. Packs of unopened gum. Nothing wasted.

“Ever try them?” Jackie asks in the car over the heavy moombahton blasting from the radio. He’s casual at the wheel. “Virtus, I mean.”

“Nah,” says V, slinging an arm over the open window and watching the clouds gather overhead, thick and ominous. “Call me old-fashioned but I’ll take a corporal fuck over a preem BD anyday.”

Jackie’s laugh slices right through the music. “You and me both, choom.”

That green couch at the Welles house probably carries a dent in the shape of V by now. He finds himself on it again, under a scratchy blanket that doubles as a throw. It’s got that worn out smell, the smell of leftover food, of musty candle wax, of Jackie. Mama Welles is doing night shift at the Coyote and V barely registers the door click when she gets back, deep in his slumber.

The next week they’re in Northside, retrieving a klepped van from a Maelstrom warehouse. There’s a new recruit at the gate, green behind the ears. She goes down quietly with a headlock but they’re caught on surveillance and have to shoot their way out of the warehouse. Jackie narrowly dodges a bullet to the head, but another blows out his shoulder. V hears it before he sees it. They make it to the van and steamroll over a few Maelstroms before hightailing it back on to the main road. By the time V glances over Jackie’s already bleeding profusely over the carseat.

“It’s nothin’, just a scratch,” he says, attempting to grin, but his voice is raggedy and his breath comes out like a whistle.

V drives like a goddamn maniac to Vik’s.

*

Vik’s a tough guy with a tender touch. He’s got a way of calming people, an excellent bedside manner, no-nonsense, injects you with exactly what your battered body needs. On his operating chair Jackie looks like a massive, sedated animal. V’s useless in moments like this; he never knows the right thing to say. Jackie winces when the needle punches through his skin, and then falls limp.

“Just give him a week to recover,” Vik says afterward. “No escapades for you two ‘til then.” He takes off his gloves and pours himself a glass of whiskey from the bottle on his desk. Pours a second one for V.

They clink in the silence of the room, around Jackie’s anesthetized body.

“Not sure I’ll be able to stop him if he wants to get back in it the minute he wakes up.”

Vik’s glasses are too dark for V to see his expression. V’s always wondered about his age. Growing up he’d heard of Vik as the heavyweight boxing champion from Watson, a local legend. Saw his face on the news. He’d been handsome back then, too, his face unburdened with lines. V’s never asked why he gave it up. He knows they go out to the gym sometimes, Vik and Jackie, throw a few punches around. Everyone’s got a life he’s not entirely privy to. It makes him think about what he’s got, besides work.

*

The next day thrums along. Fixers keep hitting him up with gigs. It’s just that time of year, everyone needs to get a job done. He’s building up cred, the evidence in the fact that he can’t have a five-minute conversation with Mama Welles about her son’s torn-up shoulder without hearing the beeps of incoming messages from the likes of Wakako, Padre, Regina Jones. Six months ago he had to scour for gigs through word of mouth, and now they’re all coming to him. It feels good, but he has to go on silent mode to hear Mama Welles say, “Go pay him a visit, will you, V? You know that kid gets restless when he’s at home all alone.”

V’s memorized the drive to the house by now. He finishes up the last of his duties—delivers an unidentified package to a locker on the first floor of a Pacifica mall and is wired a thousand eddies before he makes his way over.

Jackie meets him at the door in a tank and shorts and a five-o-clock shadow that’s just about consumed his jawline. He’s unrecognizable, a quarter of his arm taped up to his shoulder. “Took you long enough.”

“Had to finish up some biz,” V says, sliding on to the couch. Jackie moves into the kitchen. He hears him cracking open a beer.

“You been drinking all day?”

“Nah,” says Jackie, handing over the bottle. “Just the last… seven hours.”

“Jesus, Jack. It’s only three.”

Jackie shrugs. “I’ve been antsy, you know. Can’t sit still. Doesn’t help that my phone’s been blowing out my eardrums.”

V takes a swig from the bottle. It goes down easy. “Just relax. Merc life’ll still be there when you’re all healed up.”

“I feel good as new, V.”

V has seen Jackie like this before. He gets this way before a big mission, adrenaline pumping through his veins. But right now he’s amped up with nowhere to go.

“Sorry, doc’s orders,” V says. “Wanna put something on?”

“Sure,” Jackie says, flicking on the screen. “Anything you want. Been watching soaps all day.”

“Don’t mind me going through your stash?”

“What’s mine is yours, buddy.”

Jackie plugs into the remote and the screen lights up with a menu. He sits back, stretches out his arms along the back of the couch, as V channel-surfs. It’s not a great selection; there’s the basic channels, and then a bunch of video files Jackie must have pulled off the Net. There’s an untitled folder at the bottom of the list that he ignores.

They sit through half an hour of an action flick V randomly selected before Jackie sits up.

“This shit blows, man,” Jackie says. He’s on his third beer since V got here and slurring his words. “Wanna watch something else?”

“Sure,” says V. He watches as Jackie flicks back to the menu and navigates to the folder V avoided earlier. He’s quiet, doesn’t say anything as Jackie opens the folder. The list of videos in this folder is longer, and each screenshot, though blurry, gives enough away for V to know what’s about to happen.

Jackie looks over right before he clicks again. “You good, V?”

“Yeah, I'm alright.”

They haven’t done this before, but V’s seen Jackie talk to girls, flirty and suggestive. Jackie’s smooth, smoother than V by far. Get a couple drinks in him and he’s leaning in, making them laugh, pulling them onto the dance floor and shimmying up close. There’s a line he doesn’t cross—there’s Misty, after all—but he treads along it. It’s the attention he craves, V thinks. 

V never joins in. It’s not his scene and he’s got two left feet. He just likes to watch.

This is different, sitting on the couch with their dicks out. The video is a first person blow job, an anonymous dick sliding in and out of the girl’s mouth. She makes a lot of eye contact, and it takes V out of it. He’s not into this. Never has been.

But Jackie is. He’s grunting softly as he works his cock, dragging his fist in slow, sure strokes. V tries not to look but he can make it out from the corner of his eye. His own cock is still soft, and he closes his eyes, tries to go further into himself.

“Can’t even jerk off properly,” he hears Jackie say in disgust after a moment. “This fucking blows, mano.”

V looks over then, careful to keep his eyes trained on Jackie’s face. “Your arm?”

“Yeah,” Jackie says with a sigh. “Guess Vik wasn’t kidding about the healing process.”

“He didn’t give you anything to help with the pain?”

Jackie shakes his head. V doesn’t mean to but sees it—Jackie’s dick, thick and girthy in his palm.

“Told him I was a big boy, I should be able to handle it. Sorry, V. You can still watch though, it’s one of the better ones in the collection.”

“I’m good,” V says, now self-conscious about his own soft dick. “Told you before, I prefer the real thing.”

“Ah, right,” Jackie says, pulling up his shorts. “Sometimes you gotta settle for second best. I don’t see no girls lining up at our door.”

V huffs out a laugh. “What about Misty?”

“We broke up,” says Jackie, with a sad shrug. “She won’t talk to me, says I picked my mama over her.”

It’s not an unfair accusation. Everyone who knows Jackie knows he’s a momma’s boy. Still—“Harsh words,” V says.

“Maybe for the best.” Jackie’s walking into the kitchen, where he grabs a family-size bag of peanuts from one of the cupboards. One of the overhead lights went out over the summer and he never bothered to fix it. He looks enormous standing there in the cramped space between the fridge and the sink, holding the bag of peanuts in the crook of his bad arm, pressing it close to his chest like a baby. Jackie would be a good dad, V thinks, and is hit by a sudden surge of affection that rises in his chest like a tidal wave, bowling him over. Jackie’s talked about it on occasion, early morning drives back to his apartment, eyes trained on the horizon as he navigates through the quiet streets of the city past the bums, druggies, graffitied storefronts. Parts of the city looked hollowed out in the morning, faded and revealed for their dilapidation, unfettered by the neon lights and bustle of pedestrians, walking fast and wanting to be seen. V’d watch trash scrape along the sidewalk for a few blocks and listen to Jackie muse about his future, all the things he’d wanted since he was a kid. Sometimes he rolled the window down and rested his elbow on the ledge, feeling the wind against his skin. Jackie wanted a big family, one that he didn’t have and had to discover in strangers, he wanted a nice house and a yard and a wife to keep him in check and laugh at his bad jokes. V was quiet when Jackie got like this, dreamy and far away, like he was talking to himself and V was just there behind a wall, a spectator to his fantasies. V himself couldn’t see past the next day, the next week; the future was like an obscured glass, cloudy and scratched up. He lived day to day, moment to moment and the truth was, he had no one. 

“Peanut?” Jackie’s asking and tosses one over before V can agree. V opens his mouth and watches the peanut make a high swooping arc before landing, hard and a little stale, on his tongue.

art by [@ranxxxnef](https://twitter.com/ranxxxnef)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- I couldn't resist, I love them too much. First chapter of maybe a few?  
> \- [Started a tumblr](https://regrettsu.tumblr.com/) just for this game but have no idea what I'm doing  
> \- a huge shout-out to [@ranxxxnef](https://twitter.com/ranxxxnef) again for the dope art, what did I do to deserve this, I'm forever in awe


	2. Chapter 2

Atlanta was what they called a shitshow. V was twenty when he left, and from twenty to twenty-two stretched the distance between stars, vast and ineffable. Two years have rendered him weary, old to his bones, a fact that, when spoken aloud, always draws a chuckle out of Jackie. “You talk like you’re dying, but trust me, V, the best is yet to come.”

You leave a place for a reason. V had left NC hopeful—felt like a pioneer or some shit, like he was traversing a new frontier. It was his first time in the air and he’d booked the cheapest seat in the back near the bathrooms. Smelled something awful the whole time. His seat couldn’t recline much or it’d hit the wall. The flight attendants passed around water in half-filled paper cups. He didn’t have enough eddies for anything else. The plastic window cover pushed up to unveil NC below him, flattening out the further up they got, the roads and highways twined like threads on a cobweb.

He’d put it all on that one-way ticket. Wagered his life away, practically, or what little there was of it thus far.

He landed a few contacts from a girl he knew growing up, who’d moved out there a couple years prior. Talked a big game and said she could take V under her wing. All her friends, it turned out, were small-time criminals who took on the sort of jobs that paid enough to get you through your next meal. They liked to gather in their apartments downtown, pass blunts around and listen to tinny trash on the radio. They were complacent in a way that was invisible to themselves, day in and day out running the same tired cons. Watching them awakened an impatience in V he didn’t even know was there. 

And then he met someone.

He met him at a bar, on his third drink of the night, tequila beginning to fuzz his tongue. “New around here?” and he’d looked over, lines in his vision dancing already, he’d always been a lightweight, at the guy sitting a few stools down, clean-cut in his attire but a scar tearing through his right eye, metal plated from his temples into his hairline. Broad-shouldered. Smiling.

V remembers shuddering, partly ‘cause of the drink, and saying something like, “What’s it to you?” like an obstinate drunk, and instantly regretting it, because the stranger hadn’t even done anything to him. “Whoa, easy there,” said the guy, and V eyed him carefully as he slid over several stools into the one beside V’s, introduced himself and offered to buy him a shot.

Turned out he was a fixer, though he didn’t fit the bill, visually. Minus the scar, he could’ve passed for a toothpaste model. He asked V about himself and said things like “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship,” with a straight face. He kept V’s glass filled all night. Tyler was his name, Ty for short. At the time V had just moved out of his friend’s place straight into a motel, and Ty said he had a one-bed just a few blocks up, that his couch was all V’s if he wanted it. At the bar V talked way too much, loose-lipped from the buzz, spilling facts about his past, his childhood, stuff he never told anyone about. Ty was a good listener, nodding and agreeing at the right moments, asking the kinds of questions that showed he was taking it all in. Back home the people around V weren’t big conversationalists; they preferred to let their weapons do the talking.

He doesn’t remember who made the first move, just following Ty a few blocks up the street into the lobby of a luxury apartment complex. The elevator ride up where he stared at his reflection in the doors, skin sagging and eyes red. He remembers thinking, _fuck I’m a mess_ , walking down a long well-lit hallway that smelled like new carpet, finally stopping before a door, the click of the lock before entering, and then standing in the foyer for moments in the dark until one of them moved and the light sensors kicked in and illuminated both their faces and the space around them, a tasteful, minimally decorated apartment where the lamps matched the couch matched the cupboards. He remembers not knowing where to sit, and being guided to the couch, being offered a glass of water, their fingers touching briefly. And then not letting go. Creeping his hand up the length of Ty’s arm, pulling him onto the couch with him.

V had always known what he liked, just never made a point of advertising it. He was hungry that night, maybe had been for a while. He’d messed around with some guys back in Heywood, not the type you took home, but then again neither was he. He knew his way around a cock, and gave good, attentive head. Ty’s jeans smelled like detergent and he wore the kind of designer boxers V saw advertised on billboards. They peeled off to reveal a nice, clean cock that would later grow hard in V’s mouth as Ty rutted up against him, so close his manicured pubes tickled V’s nose. “Fuck, you’re good at this,” Ty gritted out, his hands digging into V’s hair. 

The next morning V had woken up with a hangover that threatened to split his scalp in half. He was on a bed, naked except for his boxers, and he made his sloppy way over to the kitchen, fingers skating along the walls for support, where Ty was standing and holding a fresh pot of coffee. “Hey,” he said from behind the island counter like a star on the set of some daytime cooking show. “Got a gig for you, whenever you’re ready.”

That was how it started. Days slow fucking on top of thousand-thread-count Egyptian-imported cotton sheets, nights driving to strange locales in parts of the city he’d never been, picking up and dropping off packages, getting wired ridiculous sums of money into his account. For months it was good, beyond good, better than V had ever known, until suddenly, like a magician’s fingersnap, it wasn’t.

*

His face is warm. He opens his eyes to long slats of sunlight filtered in through the half-open window blinds, painting golden everything they touched. To his right, a massive hairy leg dangles off the bed. He doesn’t remember going upstairs or falling asleep on the floor of Jackie’s bedroom at first but the night returns in pieces as he blinks sleep out of his eyes—they’d sipped what was left of their beers in silence and then when V got up, unsteady, Jackie had said, casually, “Stay over, will ya? C’mon, it’ll be like old times.” Jackie could be real persuasive when he needed something. V thought maybe he just didn’t want to be left alone.

A few more gluey blinks and it’s coming back to him—trudging up the stairs, legs like lead, entering Jackie’s cluttered room, almost walking into the punching bag, knocking into a corner of the bed, Jackie saying, “V, you alright?” his voice too loud and too close. V must’ve nodded or given some sort of affirmative, and then dragged his ass to the sink where he brushed his teeth with the toothbrush Jackie had given him last time, the one he kept in a clear plastic cup behind the mirror.

He remembers the herculean effort it took to keep his eyes open, remembers gurgling and spitting into the sink, watching it shoot into the drain. Thinking _I saw Jackie’s dick tonight._ Just as quickly, shoving that thought aside. 

He’d collapsed on top of the pillow Jackie had tossed to the floor and watched dizzily as Jackie pulled his tank over his head, baring a chest crisscrossed with scars V had noticed before but never really looked at. “Souvenirs from my previous life,” Jackie said, meeting V’s stare with a shrug. Jackie didn’t talk about the Valentinos much but when he did it was at once wistful and matter-of-fact, entirely free of resentment. A cluster of bullet wounds near his sternum caught at the edges of V’s vision, and he couldn’t bring himself to look away. Three of them, tiny craters, just over the heart. He was struck with an impulse to reach out and rub his finger over them, feel the puckered edges of each.

Weird thought.

Jackie’s a snorer, a big one, and the room is quiet now except for the rattle of his uneven breathing. V rolls on to his side and pushes up to his knees, his feet, with each motion Jackie’s face coming more clearly into view. He’s frowning in his sleep, brows knitted together as if in worry, his handsome face pensive in a way that it rarely is when awake. It makes V want to laugh, and he does, privately, under his breath.

Downstairs Mama Welles is reading a book propped up on her lap. “V, you came,” she says at the sight of V tiptoeing down the stairs. She sets down the book on the coffee table and stands up, pulls him into a warm hug.

“The floor up there is hard,” she says. “If I’d known, I would’ve gotten out the extra blankets in the closet.” 

V isn’t used to being fussed over. “I’ve got a strong back, Mama Welles. Slept like a baby.”

She presses her lips together into a thin line, an almost-smile, and lays a hand on his shoulder. “I appreciate you coming over, V. That boy’s been having a hard time.”

Misty, V thinks. The injury probably didn’t help either. “Yeah, anytime.”

“I know you’re busy but… maybe you can keep him company the next few days? I don’t feel good when he’s at home alone and I’m at work.”

V’s had his phone on silent for the last twelve hours. He’s afraid to check it now. He’d planned to go home, shower, and get right back to business but the way Mama Welles is looking at him right now, soft and desperate, is making it difficult.

“Sure thing,” he says, after a beat. “I could use a vacation, too. Just let me grab some stuff from my place.”

*

“Missed me that much, huh?” is the first thing Jackie says a couple hours later when he pulls the door open and there’s V with a duffel bag swung over his shoulder. Jackie’s changed into a different tank and pair of shorts and his hair is wet like he just got out of the shower. 

“Thought I’d take a few days off from the grind.” V slips in and sets the bag on the floor.

“And you wanted a change of scenery.” Jackie closes the door behind him, gives V a grin that could fix the broken bulb in the kitchen. “Well, I’m not complainin’. Was getting bored out of my skull over here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- next chapter will be up shortly & a tad spicier


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ty [@ranxxxnef](https://twitter.com/ranxxxnef) for the DELICIOUS ART once again ♡♡♡ (NSFW, embedded below)

The plan was simple: drive around, grab a drink. The inside of Lizzie’s greets them in a dreamy haze, the air diffracted by the myriad lights running the perimeter of the ceiling and lining the walls and floors. It’s early enough in the night that the place still smells like cleaning solution. They walk past the usual clientele swaying in small clusters on the dance floor with their eyes rolled to the back of their heads. Mateo is sullenly drying glasses behind the bar. 

By the time they’ve ordered their drinks, a girl has slid up beside Jackie, touched him on the arm, and leaned in to whisper something in his ear.

She’s small, with soft curly locks that fall past her shoulders. Looks nothing like Misty, but Jackie’s interested, judging from the way he sits up, drops his voice half an octave and rotates his entire body away from V to face her. Jackie’s as easy to read as a decrypted shard—it’s all there, once you know the code. 

Jackie’s hand deftly finds its place in the small of her back and lingers there. 

V turns to Mateo and jokes, “Looks like you’ll have to be my buddy instead,” aiming for somewhere between self-deprecating and conspiratorial. Mateo just shrugs.

Neither of them are exactly scintillating conversationalists. 

“Listen, I’m a bartender, not the weatherman on N54 News,” Mateo says the third time V asks if it’s going to rain tomorrow. 

Eventually he takes the hint and slouches back in his seat.

 _From babysitting to third-wheeling_ , V thinks, sneaking a glance at the back of Jackie’s head. He tosses back a beer, and then another.

Snatches of their conversation drift over from time to time. The girl is asking about the shoulder, and Jackie responds with a show of bravado, clapping a hand over his injury like it’s no big deal. V tunes them out after that.

The next thing he hears comes a good ten, fifteen minutes later. “The both of you?” The girl is saying, sounding skeptical. He looks over to see her eyebrows raised, mouth forming a round, plush circle. 

She catches him and returns the stare, one that starts at his head and moves down, down, further down still.

“Two for one deal,” Jackie’s saying in his most coaxing voice, but it’s his laugh that catches V’s attention and makes his entire body go taut and still. It’s an unfamiliar, low rumble of a laugh.

The girl follows up with a shrug, her lips moving to words V can’t hear. She slides off the barstool and heads toward the doors in the back.

Jackie follows, but only walks a few steps before turning back toward V. “You comin’?”

Something doesn’t feel right. Something feels downright wrong. But his head’s too foggy to even tell left from right, never mind conduct a debrief, and so V slurs out a “Sure,” sounding as dumb as he feels.

It happens quickly once they’re all inside a private room. V blinks and suddenly they’re making out, Jackie and the girl, in front of him. “Uh,” V starts, not knowing how to finish, and he lets himself trail off—it’s not like they’re even listening anyway. Jackie’s already got his hands on her ass, gripping so tightly V can see the white glint of his knuckles. This isn’t happening, V tells himself, a cold wave of terror surging up his spine, like he’s in the middle of a bad dream that he can’t get out of. He clamps his eyes shut for a moment, an old childhood trick, _if you can’t see them then they can’t see you_ , but it’s almost worse, the wet sounds of their lips and tongues suddenly amplified and all-encompassing in the tiny room, and he quickly opens his eyes again, in time to see the girl climbing off Jackie’s lap and getting on her knees.

She tosses V a sidelong glance on the way down, like, _you’re next_.

Seeing his best friend’s dick twice in a week was not on his list of new year’s resolutions, but then again neither was finding a best friend to begin with. So here they are, Jackie grunting and carefully guiding his cock into the girl’s mouth, and V trying not to watch, wishing he were anywhere but there. Jackie’s cock is starkly articulated against a dark crown of pubes, its head disappearing into the girl’s mouth in wet strokes. There’s an unusual restraint in the way Jackie rolls his hips, like he’s feeding himself to her in delicate spoonfuls. He has a thumb on her cheek, almost tender. His eyes are half-closed. It’s impossible to tell where he’s looking.

V stands up, knocking his knee against the round center table. “Bathroom,” he announces, like an idiot.

He stalks down the hall to the restroom, mind racing so fast it feels about to glitch. No one’s inside and it’s quiet but for the buzzing of the flickering overhead lights. The water from the faucet is lukewarm; he splashes some onto his face, anyway. It doesn’t change anything. “Fuck,” V says, and then, louder, because no one’s around, “ _Fuck_.”

His head feels like it got pummeled. He drags himself into a stall and sucks a cold breath into his lungs. The air in here is foul, piss-flavored, but still beats going back to the room, where everything felt claustrophobic and too small. 

Something catches at the corner of his eye—a used condom swimming in the toilet bowl. Shitheads don’t know how to flush these days.

It’s disgusting. Makes him want to vomit. Or would, if he weren’t hard. “Fuck,” V says, a third time, and wrestles his dick out of his jeans.

He jerks himself a little, and his cock smarts at the dryness of his hand. He licks his palm and tries again. He hadn’t wanted to do this. There are lines he doesn’t cross. But he’s been hard ever since the girl got down to her knees and he had to watch Jackie’s cock grow to full size. It’s fucking massive. How many girls have choked on that thing? It’s a fleeting image—Jackie thrusting savagely into some poor girl’s throat, the chains around his neck clinking against each other—but something about it works for V. His body feels tight and hot, like all his muscles are constricted into one giant knot, and all he wants is to keep stroking himself while thinking about it. 

V’s been to Kabuki a few times since he got back, but mostly for biz. Only a few times for personal. He’d picked the cleanest looking guy off the street and headed into the nearest motel for some quick relief. But mostly the job kept him too busy to even get off. He’s been backed up for days now, and working his dick feels incredible, even in a place like this. He shuts his eyes and milks his cock slowly, trying to savor it. He thinks about Jackie, back in the room, pushing his giant cock inside the girl. Gripping her ass with his big hands as he slides in and out of her. He wonders what sounds Jackie makes when he’s fucking, if he’ll moan or grunt or roll his eyes back, if he’ll talk dirty. Jackie seems like the type that wouldn’t shut up in bed, fucking your brains out and talking your ear off at the same time. 

V speeds up, working his hand faster, as his hips lift involuntarily from the wall to thrust into the tight ring of his fingers. It’s messed up, he knows, jerking off while thinking about Jackie, and he tries to push the images out but he can’t—

“V, you in there?”

Jackie’s voice echoes into the empty bathroom.

V freezes, his entire body like a block of ice. His dick is hard in his palm, and a little sticky with precome. “Uh, yeah,” he calls out from inside the stall, tucking himself up against the waistband of his boxers and wiping his hand on the front of his jeans. “Sorry, be out in a sec.”

Just like that, he snaps out of it.

“You were gone for a while there,” Jackie says, looking healthily fucked. There’s a sheen of sweat on his forehead. His entire face is glistening. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, I, uh, might’ve had a little too much to drink. You looked like you were having fun.”

“V,” Jackie says, taking a step closer. “You coulda said something if this… wasn’t your thing.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know.” Jackie looks sheepish, apologetic even. “This.”

“Jack,” V starts. “I didn’t want to make it awkward, I guess.”

“So instead you let me make it awkward,” Jackie laughs. “Don’t worry, I’m kidding. But, eh, you wanna take care of that?”

His eyes flick down to V’s poorly concealed erection.

_Fuck._

“You’re shy, huh,” says Jackie, with a smile. “Is that what this is? We can get you a private room.”

“No,” V says quickly. “I mean, it’s fine. Let’s just head back.”

“C’mon, we’re out to have a little fun tonight. That’s what this was all about, right? You said you wanted a mini vacation. Relax a little, V.”

“Jack,” V cuts in. “It’s not that. I’m not into—what you’re into.”

“I know—”

“Girls,” V finishes.

Jackie’s face changes.

“Yeah.”

There’s a long pause. Long enough for a montage of V’s life to flash before his eyes. Regret, the whole shebang. He probably shouldn’t have said anything. He’s ruined it all now.

“Coulda told me earlier,” Jackie says finally. He’s pushing the heels of his hands into his eyes and then emerging from behind them with a hard stare. He’s upset.

“It never came up,” V says, which is a lie, and Jackie knows it, judging from the look he gets. “Okay, well. Guess I didn’t know how you’d react.”

“Shit,” Jackie says, a grittiness in his voice. “That’s what you think of me, huh?”

“That’s not what—”

“I get it, V,” is all Jackie says before walking out of the restroom.

art by [@ranxxxnef](https://twitter.com/ranxxxnef)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter might take a while longer (boo, end of holidays/returning to work). thanks as always for reading!


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